January Creative Wrap Up

{This post contains an affiliate link … meaning if you purchase a course via my website I will receive a small commission}

And just like that, January has ended. The latter half of this month has been a bit topsy turvy for me. Someone mentioned something about the moon being in Virgo and how that would negatively effect me as a Virgo. And boy were they right! I suffered a bit of early onset empty nest. Once the kids had gone back to school and Jud (my teacher husband) had gone back to work I felt a bit lost. I was certainly busy but I just couldn’t get my head around getting anything done. I was in a bit of a mind flip out about time passing too quickly, kids growing up too fast and to compound it all, my eldest, is now in his very last year of school, ever! It kind of hit me like a tonne of bricks and I just pottered about not knowing what to do. Anyway with the start of February and a routine of sorts starting to work itself out, I am feeling slightly better. And those projects that were put aside are now out again and ready for me to tackle. Isn’t the mind a powerful but weird thing.

So… FMS Photo a Day. Well that lasted for about two weeks. Probably right up until the moment when holidays stopped. I just didn’t feel inclined or motivated to take photos. However I’ve printed off February’s prompts and am eager to start up again. 

What I HAVE made time for and really enjoyed is my little daily doodle calendar. I love this. It is so do-able. The month of January saw me experimenting with little abstract pieces. This is such a great way of playing with designs and I have formed a few ideas for artwork and prints by playing with these designs. For February I’m going to stick to a theme – black line drawings. So if this is something that you’d like to play with, I’ve created a new calendar page for the month of February. Just doodle or draw or paint an image in each day of the month. Click on this link to download. art-calendar-feb

 

Here is my finished page for the month of January. 

 

I subscribe to a few online courses – Craftsy, Skillshare and Creativebug. Very late in the month I discovered a fab little daily challenge by the uber talented Lisa Congdon. It is called “31 Things to Draw” and it ran for the month of January. Like I said I came to this challenge late but I am going to continue doing this at my own pace. There are some interesting ideas for drawing challenges that have really stretched me. One of the toughest was forks (surprisingly!).

There is now a new daily drawing challenge for February “29 Things to Draw”. If you’re interested in this particular course or any course from Creativebug you can sign up for a free trial through my affiliate link in the right hand column or via this link. It’s well worth having a look at all the courses through Creativebug – you’ll find quick courses from the simplest ideas like learning to cast on for knitting to large scale projects like learning calligraphy.

I’ve also found some very worthwhile courses through Skillshare.. You can learn graphic design and software skills and they offer many interesting business courses, along with loads of craft courses. There are just so many creative courses available online nowadays it is mind boggling. Craftsy courses are growing every day. You can honestly learn just about anything you can think of and they now have a range of products to purchase as well. Keep a look out for special deals and discounts. I’ve been wanting to learn quilting since forever and Craftsy have so many options available for beginners all the way through to advanced. Have a look at what’s available via the link in my right hand column. 

Here is one of the pages I created for the Creativebug “31 Things to Draw” challenge. 

I started my brush lettering challenge really well with Random Olive for the month of January but like everything else I got a bit lost towards the end of January. I have, however, picked up again for February and am very excited about the prompts. They are all floral related and flowers are one of my favourite things so I’m quite excited about this one. Follow along if you’d like. The Instagram hashtag is #brushletterpracticechallenge and you will find her at @randomolive. 

So .. what else? The start of the new season of Get Messy Art Journalling. They have a brand, spanking new website and lots of amazing new content. The new prompts for the season of “Happiness” have just been revealed and I am super excited. I feel like art journalling will help heal me through what is a bit of a difficult time for me personally. Art Journalling is very therapeutic and surprisingly powerful. If you haven’t already joined this programme you really should. They are a great group of supportive, like-minded ladies and so inspiring. Even if you’ve never tried art journalling before there are a lot of newbies (me included) and there is always someone within the group who will encourage you and support you along the way. 

So February should see me very busy. Which is a really good thing. I am just putting the finishing touches on my new graphic design website and it will hopefully will be ready to reveal this month (fingers crossed). I am also planning to put a number of stationery, snail mail, planner and paper craft goodies on this very here blog. So if you go to the home page and check in from time to time you will notice under the shop menu that I’ve added some new categories. 

And on top of everything else I’ve got a new Etsy shop where I will be stocking all sorts of blingy goodies. So far I’ve only listed my jewellery but I will be creating a lot of fabulous bling for your life. Stayed tuned!

Also coming up will be some Brother Scan N Cut tutorials for you crafty folk out there. I’ve been experimenting with this machine a lot in the last couple of weeks and have quite a few Valentines tutorials that I think you will love. Even if you don’t have a die cut machine you will still be able to make these crafts.

Phew! I think February will be busy but great fun. How was your January? Did you feel a bit blergh or were you rearing to go? Do you have big plans for February?